I Know What You Did Last Summer
by ness2
Summary: Hamilton forgot. Its working title was the cheesy amnesia story.
1. Default Chapter

Working Title: the cheesy amnesia story  
Author: ness  
Disclaimer: I don't own them.  
  
Notes: Jamie asked for a story where "nobody knew Jake was a girl." I like the sight of Ham in denial. This is the result. It's all Jamie's fault, I tell you.  
  
Jamie gave me a title too! Thank you!

This was written ages ago, but the site on the net where I had it displayed got found by a RL friend so.. it isn't publically visible anymore. So I'm putting it here, if that's all right.

Closed eyes, darkness. Open eyes, light. Way, way too much light, reflecting off gloss white walls, off surfaces polished to a shine. His room had a cork board where he pinned his current favourite shots. His room had posters of 3rd Eye Blind where he could see them from bed. This room was unfamiliar. This was somewhere else.  
  
This was some kind of institution, he supposed. His head hurt, a dull ache which turned into outright pain when he struggled upright.  
  
He scrunched his face up. Way, way too much light. This looked like a hospital room. He had no idea what he was doing here. His head throbbed.  
  
He couldn't remember anything happening to cause this. Maybe, an accident. Would it stop him attending the Summer Session? Being free while the other guys were stuck in class would be cool, but he totally wanted to go. The guys there would be hooking up into groups. He wanted to be a part of their friendships. This year, he wasn't going to be the annoying little tagalong. This year, he was gonna be one of them.  
  
He so didn't want to miss out on all of that. His dad didn't need to know just how badly his head hurt. Actually, he wasn't sure his dad would bother to show. Being Dean was kind of a full time occ -  
  
The door crashed open. Both his parents were there. His eyes stung. His mom swept over and enveloped him. "My baby" she crooned. He held on tight for a moment. Over her shoulder, he could see his Dad hanging back, looking solemn.  
  
"How many fingers am I holding up?" the Dean asked urgently.  
  
"Steven.." his mom protested.  
  
Hamilton sighed. "Three, dad."  
  
The Dean's frown eased a little. "Who is the President?"  
  
"Noakes" he said confidently. Then, seeing his father's face, "Oh. Sorry. Not the School Board. Clinton."  
  
His mother pulled away to look anxiously at his face. "It's Bush, munchie."  
  
Hamilton froze. How long had he been in hospital? "Did I miss summer session?"  
  
"It starts in a week."  
  
Now Hamilton was completely confused. He could have been in a coma for _years_, then. He glanced quickly down. He didn't have old-guy hands anyway. His head throbbed in time to his pulse.  
  
His mom explained. "You were hit on the head a couple of days ago."  
  
He snuck a look round. No calendar, no helpfully dated papers lying around.  
  
"The consultant said you might experience memory problems." The Dean was eying him somberly, no doubt wishing academically average kids could be shoved back in the womb and replaced with something more bragworthy.  
  
Hamilton's head was pounding. Summer session next week. So, July. But.. "What year is it?"  
  
His mom started to cry.  
  
"2001" his Dad said.  
  
Hamilton was silenced by shock. He'd lost a _year_ out of his life. 


	2. Dad and the New York stock exchange

disclaimer: still don't own them.

Ham had had more of his Dad's attention since this accident than, like, he ever had before. The Dean blew off a conference to stay in Rawley over the weekend, and spent all the time he could with Ham.  
  
He was talking to Hamilton. It went beyond "Apply yourself to your studies" and "Be quiet, young man, if you have nothing useful to contribute" to real conversations, where Dad listened, too. They talked about Ham's ambitions.

Ham broke it to him that he wanted to be a photographer. Dad looked like he was sucking lemons, but he actually listened.  
  
This was so cool. For the first time Ham started to hope he wouldn't get herded into the New York stock exchange. If a bang on the head was the price he had to pay to have the Dean focus on being a Dad, well, it was worth it to him. He wasn't stupid; he got that his parents had been totally scared. His Dad was an academic to the bone. Head injury must have been his alltime nightmare. He still couldn't resist throwing pop quizs Ham's way, kind of sneaked into the conversation. In between plans to do stuff, go places. Cool.  
  
His Mom had a few things to say about his "skulking in his room" instead of joining the guys now that S-Session had started. He couldn't explain his reluctance. He felt weird about it all. He told his parents his head still hurt. It did, too.  
  
Ham smiled. It was amazing to have so much of Dad's time and attention.


	3. visitor

notes: Thank you again to Jamie (it bears repeating cos she was very encouraging)

disclaimer: still don't own them

The first day that his dad missed stopping by (after morning class, while the guys hit the gym before lunch), someone else came. Hamilton looked up to see a lanky, sallow boy hovering irresolute in the doorway of his room. He was staring intently at Hamilton.  
  
Hamilton had no idea who he was. "Hey."  
  
A single, jerky nod upward, and the boy came in. He dropped onto a chair. His eyes ate Hamilton up.  
  
Hamilton put the Rawley College magazine aside. It was disconcerting, to read accounts of races won by the JV team, to know he'd been there, and to remember none of it.  
  
"Is it true you've forgotten everything?" the boy demanded harshly.  
  
"Everything since starting at Rawley." Ham wondered if it was any of this stranger's business. Of course, it might be. This could be his best friend, for all he knew. If it were, though, he would have shown earlier, and come over with Ham's dad. He peered at the stranger.  
  
"Summer session?"  
  
"Including summer session, yeah" Hamilton growled. "Look, who are you?"  
  
The boy looked shaken. "I'm Jake."  
  
"Jake." Hamilton studied him. Under a veneer of stilness, Jake was wound up as tightly as a metal coil. Hamilton felt a connection to him, like he could feel the conflicting urges, to bolt or to get closer, in his own body. He couldn't explain the connection. "The coxswain?"  
  
"Uh, yeah" Jake said awkwardly. "Your mom told you about me, huh?"  
  
Actually, no. Hamilton sat on the side of his bed. There had been a photograph of the JV crew in the school magazine. Jake had been the one in the hoodie. His mom might've told him about Jake, he supposed. She'd talked for hours, trying to spark off him memories. "Are we friends?"  
  
He saw a flicker of hurt before Jake controlled his expression again. "We're best friends."  
  
"Oh, sorry." It sounded lame but he said it anyway. "I can't remember."  
  
"Yeah."

Silence, apart from the breath running shallow and fast into Jake. Evidently he was the laconic type. Hamilton wondered what they had in common. "So, uh, what do we usually do when we hang out?"  
  
Jake rolled his shoulders and cleared his throat. "We're on crew." He looked at the door longingly. "We like the same movies and TV. We so don't like the same music."  
  
"Not a fan of Third Eye Blind" Ham contributed.  
  
"And you don't like Sarah McLaughlin."  
  
Ham pulled a face. "God, you're into that? Chick music."  
  
"Yeah, well. It helps me _get_ chicks." Jake leaned back in his chair, a swagger in his voice.  
  
He probably needed all the help he could get, scrawny runt. Hamilton wondered how _he_ was doing with the ladies. Which would be worse: forgetting losing his virginity, or still having it and not knowing? "Do I have a girlfriend?"  
  
Jake's good humour ebbed. "No." His voice was flat.  
  
After a minute, Ham realised he wasn't going to be hearing stories about Sindys and Barbies he'd loved and lost in his missing year. "So. What else do we do?"  
  
"We play, like, a ton of computer games."  
  
"Oh." Ham had spent years doing that alone. He had pretty mean hand-eye coordination. He pitied Jake.  
  
"- and I always win" Jake was saying.  
  
Always? Well, computer games were what Ham did because he had no people around. In the last year he'd had people; his thumb must've gotten rusty. Or something. "How'd you get so good?" he asked politely.  
  
"Oh. You know. Computers are my thing. Like photography is yours."  
  
Hamilton's mouth fell open. Photography was art. Art. The way he felt about it was intense. He struggled to make the composition right, make it reflect the image in his head. He wasn't sure he had the words to talk about it. His successes and failures in photgraphy were something he brooded about. The clambering to an ideal point of view alone, the skulking to get a candid shot, none of it was part of the cool guy image he'd planned in the runup to summer session. Beauty, light, form. None of that belonged in guy talk as he understood it. He'd overheard the kids from Edmund High. The talked about baseball and chicks. The guys at Rawley talked about status symbols and chicks. Somewhere, he'd seriously messed up his plan to Be Like The Other Guys. "I talk to you about photographs" he said doubtfully.  
  
"Yeah. It's cool." Jake picked up the school magazine and fidgetted with it. "We hang out in your dark room sometimes while the pictures are developing."  
  
Ham had an idea in his head, cool shadows, relaxed voices, comfortable silences. "You gripe about the chemical smell."  
  
"You remember!" Jake's chair scraped the floor as he jumped up.  
  
Ham reached for the memory but it was gone. "No."  
  
He intended to remember though. Right now he felt like - it was hard to explain. One of his earliest pictures (that he still thought was any good) was of a brunette child at the gas station. She was playing dressup; three necklaces, lost in her mommy's frock, lipsticked to clown face. The mommy whose wardrobe she'd raided would be furious. The way the shot worked out, the focus was on plump toddler feet sliding toward the toes of high heel sandals. That was how Ham felt. He was stepping into someone else's shoes. It didn't help that the someone else was him. 


	4. starting school

disclaimer: I have no right to do this

Jake wasn't so bad. He turned out to be a sympathetic listener, who drew Hamilton into talking about anything and everything. They went outdoors, and, cross legged in the Dean's private garden, Ham told him how weird it all was. The light that day was very golden and everything in the small enclosure looked as distinct as the objects in a medieval tapestry. A dog nudged Jake to be petted, as he offered to give Ham the lowdown on unofficial Rawley. "There's so much the staff are clueless about" Jake sounded matter of fact.  
  
"That's reassuring" Ham said sarcastically. He leaned forward suddenly and tweaked Jake's baseball cap off.  
  
Jake grabbed, a moment too late. "Why'd you do that, man?"  
  
"I couldn't see your face." The dog got the cap. "I'm a photographer. I need to see things."  
  
"Really."  
  
He'd made a misstep. "Put the stupid cap back on."  
  
Jake arched an eyebrow. "I'll pass; it's covered in dog drool."  
  
Ham felt uncomfortable. He shifted, and said "What don't the teaching staff know?" Jake had a dry way of mocking everything Hamilton had been told to take seriously. He didn't know what to say back without sounding like some stupid kid.  
  
"They don't know anything" Jake told him with relish. "Ryder has regular gambling-"  
  
"Ryder!"  
  
"You remember? Oh wait. You knew him before." Jake had pressed him a couple of times now, about whether the doctors expected him to recover his memories.  
  
Jake was saying Ryder was running some kind of amateur casino. Hamilton didn't get why the other guys were covering for the jerk. He'd spent years at the dinner table listening to his folks discussing dealing with stuff like this.  
  
It used to be, he wouldn't have told his Dad either, but that was then. He knew how to talk to his Dad now, and he totally could explain things.  
  
Openmouthed, Jake heard him out. "I thought you said you weren't a narc."  
  
"What? I'm not."  
  
Jake regarded him, cautious, judging.  
  
"I can keep a secret. It's just, I don't owe Ryder anything. Do I?"  
  
Jake grunted.  
  
"Tell me he's changed." Ham didn't have much hope.  
  
Jake shook his head. "Nah. He failed English, so he's retaking Lit class. With us."  
  
Hamilton flung himself on his back and groaned dramatically. He closed his eyes.   
  
"He'll never graduate. He'll be retaking Finn's Lit class when he's forty." Jake had a low, smooth voice.  
  
"Making my life a misery" Hamilton grumbled.  
  
"Hey, you'll be out of here by then, dude."  
  
Ham looked up and Jake was grinning at him. It was infectious. He found himself smiling back. "I'm going to be retaking Finn's class when I'm forty." Whatever he said about a poem or a book was wrong. Finn was cool and everything, but Hamilton was starting to feel really dumb.  
  
Jake shook his head and changed the subject. "Let's move. Marcus and the guys should be playing football on the south lawn. Think we should go join them?"  
  
That evening, Ham's parents were delighted by his suggestion that he start attending summer session.  
  
:

Ham couldn't sleep. All the lessons he remembered were one on one home schooling. He'd envied guys in class. Apart from anything else, if their attention wandered, they didn't get called on it right away. He had this memory of English class on a raft on the lake. Someone else was answering a question - unnecessarily fully, in his opinion - and he was watching light reflect off the water and feeling a warm summer breeze on his skin. Or that could be a daydream. He did a lot of that.  
  
Lit class. His answers never impressed Finn much in the tutorials he remembered. Every comment he made was wrong or trivial. He was afraid he might be stupider than the other guys. If class was going to be one long humiliation this summer would suck. Mom said he was smart, but her opinion didn't prove anything.  
  
He'd _been_ in classroom teaching. He'd had a year of this.  
  
Yes, but he'd forgotten it.  
  
He'd made friends. This was going to be so weird, total strangers who might be friends. Or not. Easier to make a fresh start. Mom kept saying that "a fresh start," like putting a positive spin on it. OK. He _had_ done this, so he _could_ do this.  
  
Dad kept asking him school questions now, and he got them right, mostly. He knew the work.  
  
He just didn't know how he'd measure up.  
  
Fresh start. He could do this.  
  
The crack on the ceiling was shaped just like the coastline of Florida.  
  
He was thinking too much. 


	5. friends, or not?

disclaimer: not mine, the characters are property of Warner Bros and a fizzy drink

Hamilton scrambled up from his desk at the end of the first class of the day feeling relieved. He knew his schoolwork all right, or when he didn't, it was the same kind of not-knowing as the other guys. Dad would be pleased that he could keep up.  
  
"Hamilton? Does your head hurt?" Finn stopped him on his way out. He was only doing his job, but -  
  
"No." Hamilton wanted people to stop fussing.  
  
"You were frowning."  
  
"I'm cool." Ham glanced at the door.  
  
Finn nodded, smiling slightly. "All right. I'll let you go. You'll tell me if you have problems."  
  
"Yeah." Ham bolted.  
  
In the corridor he ran into two of his classmates. One of them was Krudsky. He talked a lot in class and the assignment he'd handed Finn had been a much thicker printout than anyone else's. The other was Calhoun. Dad had pointed him out. He was a Senator's son.  
  
"Hi."  
  
Krudsky nodded to him in passing. He was on his way back in to Finn. Hamilton was left with Calhoun.   
  
Calhoun was a little guy, no taller than himself. He seemed relaxed and friendly. "How's it going?"  
  
"It's kind of weird." Hamilton felt friendly, but not relaxed. He knew he was what his Dad called gauche, and he so didn't want to screw things up. When he was sixteen, he'd felt like his seventeenth birthday would be the turning point. He'd wake up, and like magic, he'd know the right things to say. He wouldn't talk crap out of nerves, he'd -  
  
Calhoun was craning to see the scalp wound. Maybe even Senator's sons weren't so smooth. And Calhoun was seventeen too. Real seventeen, not sixteen trapped in a seventeen yearold body. "You're on crew, right?" Hamilton asked.  
  
"Yeah." Scout looked at his face again, sympathetic. "Still putting it together, huh?"  
  
Hamilton nodded.  
  
"Where's Jake?"  
  
"How should I know?" Calhoun didn't seem too bright, he noted.  
  
"Well, you're usually, heh, inseparable. I just thought.. never mind."  
  
"You just thought, what?" Ham was getting a weird vibe here.  
  
"You and Jake have been together 24/7 all year." Calhoun turned and trudged toward the next class. "I just thought, he could be, like, your spare memory."  
  
Ham followed him. "Jake's not a talker."  
  
Scout gave him an odd look, and commented "He tutored Will in electronics last winter. He's a cool guy, but, y'know, hard to get to know. But you know him."  
  
"Knew. Past tense." Ham abruptly turned a corner and ran full face into Pratt.  
  
It was kind of weird, but Ham felt like he should go and explain his fresh start plan to Jake. Every single person he met in Rawley had this compulsion to tell him how close he and Pratt were. He found Pratt's dorm later that day. Somehow he had scammed a single room. Ham made his speech. "I'm sorry, I've worked it out. I'm starting fresh with everyone. I know I know you, but, I don't know you. Any of you. Get it?" His prepared speech faltered in the face of Jake. Jake was perfectly polite, and he was perfectly unresponsive. Ham looked round the room a little wildly. "Looks.. tidy."  
  
"Half packed." Jake shrugged. "I may leave."  
  
"Don't do that" Hamilton was taken aback to hear himself blurt.  
  
Jake's back was against the light of the window, his face in shadow. "Starting fresh. You don't know me" he quoted coolly. In other words, Ham understood, he meant, none of your business.  
  
"It's just-" Ham was uncomfortable. "You're all set up here. On crew, and, the guys like you, and you got lucky with the single room-" He envied Jake. Jake fit in here. He'd always meant to do that, and he wasn't sure he could.  
  
"Lucky!" Jake snorted. "That was skill. Nothing to do with luck."  
  
Ham looked questioning. Jake, lounging on the window frame, was silhouetted but facing him, Ham was blinded.  
  
"I hacked into the database."  
  
"What?" Hamilton yelled, shocked.  
  
"You planning to narc on me to your Dad?"  
  
"No - I mean-" Hamilton wanted time to think. "What did you change?" If Jake had hit grades or exams then it was time to explain long term thinking and the Big Plan to him. How there was no point in having a diploma marked Aplus and no understanding of the work.  
  
"Made sure I got a single room" Jake grumbled. He hung his head. He looked taken aback that Ham was all disapproving.  
  
"That's all?" Ham looked at the other boy piercingly. If Pratt was lying to him he might be able to tell. If he watched closely, and used his instincts.  
  
There was a barely discernable flush on Jake's cheekbones and he was looking straight ahead of him at a point in midspace like a soldier on parade.  
  
"Did you mess with the academic info?" Ham couldn't leave it in the air.  
  
Jake stared at him blankly a moment before getting it. When he got what Ham meant, no question but that he was angry. "I'm competitive." (Ham already got that, from class and yesterday's soccer game.) "I'm not a cheat."  
  
"Dad-"  
  
"Since when did you get to be the Dean's echo?"  
  
Great. He was going to sound like a dork. He hated this. "Look, he doesn't enforce the rules just to be an ass. There's one hundred and eighty seven boys-"  
  
"You know the _numbers_?" Pratt looked surprised. He was acting like Hamilton's whole attitude was a new thing. Hadn't he been backing Dad up, before?  
  
"Hello? Dad, Dean. Mom, head of Art Department. This is stuff I've been hearing about all my life."  
  
"Oh." Jake could barely be heard. He looked small, and hurt.  
  
Ham wanted - he didn't know what he wanted. He wanted Jake not to feel bad. "It's a cool room" he offered.  
  
Jake raised his eyes to meet Hamiltons. "It'll be better when I unpack again."  
  
Hamilton could feel his mouth stretch in a stupid grin. He went and dropped onto Jake's bed, bouncing. Contentedly, he watched his friend move around, getting things back out of semi filled cases. Was that a motorcycle helmet? Hamilton caught himself just in time and _didn't_ ask.  
  
Right this minute, he didn't want to know about rule breaking. Jake was acting all betrayed that he was on his own Dad's side. "Last year, Dad and me.. we didn't-" He wasn't sure what the question was to ask what he needed to know.  
  
"You barely spoke to each other." Jake studied him curiously.  
  
Ham thought about that. "He's been great, since, you know."  
  
"I'm glad. Really." Jake sounded strained, but he clearly meant it.  
  
Hamilton wondered about Jake's family. Mom used to joke that all the Rawley kids had parent issues. "What about your Dad?"  
  
"I don't have a Dad" Jake said.  
  
Everybody had a dad. Anything else would be partha- what was the word - parthogenesis. "Is he dead?" Ham asked cautiously.  
  
Jake shook his head. "I was an accident. By the time Mom knew about me, she couldn't remember, or she'd lost contact, or something."  
  
"Oh. I'm sorry." Ham felt way out of his depth.  
  
"It was a long time ago, dude. I'm cool."  
  
Hamilton wondered. It seemed to him like Jake hurt a lot, over a lot of things. Having a dad would've helped.   
  
"It's just me and my mom these days. When she bothers to show."  
  
"Has she ever been here?"  
  
"Uh, yeah. Last summer, at the regatta. You met her, actually."  
  
"I did?"  
  
"Yeah, you gave her the Tour. It was you, my mom, my mom's cell phone, and me. You were a big hit."  
  
Ham smirked. "Moms love me." His parents had taught him thoroughly how to impress parents. Guys his own age, not so easy.


	6. dream

disclaimer: they don't belong to me.

Ham and his dad walked back to supper together. "..and how did English class go?" Steven asked toward the end of an itemized check on Hamilton's day.  
  
"OK I guess."  
  
His dad's face twitched. Mom and dad had made jokes for years about lumpen inarticulate teenagers, and now, any time he took refuge in monosyllables, he could see Dad hating it. "I sat in on some of Mr Finn's classes during his probationary period" the Dean recalled. "He gave a series of lectures on the Romantic poets that was very.." Steven paused, looking for the right word.  
  
"Intense?" Ham offered.  
  
"Intense. Yes, that is a good word."  
  
A good word. Ham glowed. Finn told him once that he was more his father's son than his mother's. After a lot of thought Hamilton took that to mean that Finn was concerned about being seen to suck up to the Dean's son.  
  
Clearly, his dad was still brooding about Hamilton's English. "Mr Finn is key" Ham heard him mutter.  
  
Huh. Like Hamilton couldn't string a sentence together.  
  
"What novels are you studying?"  
  
Didn't Dad know? It must be on the paperwork someplace. Ham shrugged. English results for the school were good, and the Dean didn't bother Finn much. He hassled heads of lower performing departments. Mom was the one who related to the staff as an equal. The Dean's position made it seem unethical for him to press Hamilton's teachers. He had said lately he thought his hands-off policy had been over compensating.  
  
"Great Expectations."  
  
"Ah. The burdens one generation places on its successor. Pip and Estella can try to make a new future but all their aspirations and skills were given them by Miss Havisham and the convict - the very people they are trying to move beyond. The past moulds and shapes the future." Steven cleared his throat, embarrassed. "I'm sorry. That was dogmatic. There are other readings of the text."  
  
Hamilton looked at him doubtfully. Will had made a big speech saying the book was all about class and money. Finn had endorsed Will. "I hate Dickens."  
  
Steven sighed. By this, he was definitely thinking the hands-off policy had been, yeah, over compensating. "Why?"  
  
"Finn keeps saying His Characters Are Wonderful." Hamilton looked questioningly at his father, who nodded. "They're not. They're two dimensional. He gives, like, great visuals, but the walk ons are too clockwork. He gives the minor players some tick; a stutter, or ugly, or obsessive hating men-"  
  
"Miss Havisham" Steven chipped in, pleased he saw where that one came from.  
  
Jake had talked about Miss Havisham and Estella in class. "Yeah. And then he repeats the tick. It's all externals. That's not character."  
  
"He differentiates his characters purely by tics or mannerisms, you're saying" the Dean translated.  
  
"You see them from the outside all the way."  
  
"But in real life, all you will ever see is the outsides of people" Steven pointed out reasonably. "There is no way on earth you can tell what others are thinking or feeling."  
  
Hamilton scowled. "You should ask them."  
  
"It's entirely possible they'll lie to you, for any number of reasons." He added in a fairminded tone "Some of them altruistic reasons."  
  
Hamilton was scowling at the thought of his last few days. He had been trying to scam his way through this term without making waves. He had been reading peoples' external signals. He should ask the things he needed to know. Even liars would have to tell him something. What he needed were the right questions.  
  
"You think Dickens characters are too consistent when they repeat the same behavior without modification."  
  
"Real people change" Hamilton said confidently.  
  
"Adolescents change. With adults, what you see is very much what you get."  
  
Now that they were talking to each other more, Ham sometimes felt sorry for his Dad, although nothing he could see in his life warranted this gloom.  
  
:

:  
  
Moonlight, from the open, uncurtained window, dimly lit Hamilton's room. He stared at the ceiling. He'd just woken from a dream..  
  
Hamilton looked the motel room over while Jake locked the door behind them. "Well this is nice" he said sarcastically, flopping on the bed.  
  
"We need to keep a low profile." Jake measured the room too. "Look, a radio."  
  
The radio needed to be fed coins to work. How crap was this place? Jake dug some loose change out of his jeans. Abba began to play. Dream-Hamilton thought - That's a good sign.  
  
A wicked glint in his eye, Jake pulled Hamilton up and made him dance. "Running away together, hiding from every stranger-" he sang along.  
  
Ham couldn't stop laughing.  
  
..Awake, Ham lay frozen. Had that happened? Or did he want it to happen? (He couldn't work out which would be worse.) There was a lot of ceiling staring material here. He ran through the dream images, over and over, frantically. Memory or dream, it looked the same inside his head. This was horrible.  
  
:

:  
  
He ran into Will early in the morning. It figured that Will would be a heavy user of the library stacks next to the common room.  
  
"Hey" said Will.  
  
Ham nodded and dropped his arm to carry his bundle of books loosely at his side, not clutched in front of him. Too late.   
  
Will wasn't likely to ignore books. "What are those?"  
  
"Jungian dream analysis."  
  
Will looked interested. "You're dreaming."  
  
Backing away, Ham shrugged. He didn't want to get into it.  
  
Will fell into step beside him. "Maybe they're memories."  
  
"And maybe not." Ham had found some good news, browsing in the stacks. "Dream imagery isn't straightforward. Things mean the opposite-" He didn't want to give Will the specifics. "It's symbolism, okay?"  
  
"Depends how linear it was. If its Scout getting his tongue pierced and forming a Marilyn Manson tribute band, uh.. how surreal was this dream?"  
  
Ham thought about the motel room. "Very surreal."  
  
Will looked at him curiously, but didn't ask.  
  
:

:


	7. not a date

disclaimer: I don't own them, the characters belong to Warner Bros.

When Ham saw Jake the next day he was subdued. "Mom and Dad had a row last night" he confessed. He could trust Jake.  
  
"Oh." Jake reached out but stopped short of touching him. "What about?"  
  
He'd heard tones, but not words. Dad had been biting, Mom ranting. "I dunno. I thought Dad sounded down on the way home-"  
  
"What were you talking about?"  
  
If Jake thought it would be a clue, he was so wrong. "Great Expectations."  
  
"No kidding."  
  
"Dad's kind of strung out about my grades" Ham apologised.  
  
"Oh. Yeah. Right."  
  
"It's very strange" Ham distracted himself. "I talked more to my Dad about the reading than I did in class."  
  
Jake wasn't surprised. "Finn puts you down every chance he gets. Because of your Dad, or something."  
  
"Or something." Finn's issues were nothing to do with his parents. He knew what Jake was talking about. A couple of days ago, Finn had done everything short of shining a torch in his eyes and sticking needles under his nails to get his honest opinion of the Lady of Shallot, and, really, that was a piece of writing he would just as soon not waste time pondering. Then, when Ham hesitantly said he thought it would have been completely different if the knight had recognised the lady, Finn ripped him to shreds and made him look dumb.  
  
"You'd have an easier time at a different school." Jake had been in a lot of different schools, Ham remembered.  
  
"But then I wouldn't've met you." Oh, how gay did that sound? Hamilton kicked himself.  
  
"Mmmm." Jake wasn't offended, in fact he didn't seem to have noticed. "Are they over it?"  
  
"I think." Hamilton studied the other boy sidelong. The other guys had a weird smirkiness when they mentioned Jake. Or when they mentioned Jake and him together. Not that they were together. Hamilton had been noticing how Jake looked. A lot. He realised it unhappily. But that was cool, right, because he was a photographer, right? Highly developed visual sense, and Jake looked, he looked-  
  
Oh hell.  
  
Hamilton had at least one question in his head, and there was no way on earth he was going to ask it.  
  
Jake was all concerned for him, with his parents upsetting him.  
  
"It's just not normal, and it's freaking me out" Ham said shortly.  
  
"Normal." Jake looked irritated. He was going to pull the I'm A Sophisticated New Yorker card, and Hamilton wasn't up for it.  
  
"Lets go down to Rawley." He cut Jake off.  
  
Jake eyed him suspiciously. "Okay."  
  
So. Going down to New Rawley, New Rawley sights - there are none - coke at Friendly's, oh. Transport issues. He'd better ask. "Do you have a bike?"  
  
Jake's expression flickered. Ham watched him, and waited for him to admit to the motorbike that went with the crash helmet hidden in his dorm. At length, Jake said he could borrow a bike from someone.  
  
Ham sighed. "I'll give you a lift on mine. Meet me in five at the shed by the Dean's house."  
  
Jake had changed his top by the time they met. Ham didn't mention it. He was pretty sure it was the kind of thing Bruce Willis wouldn't notice. Jake was giving the bar of Ham's bike, where he'd be perching, an annoyed stare. It was okay to notice that. "What?"  
  
"Looks comfortable."  
  
Ham thought about it. Town was a mile away. Actually, Jake was wrong; it would be uncomfortable. Ouch. "Here." He pulled his top off and wadded it into a cushion. "Use this."  
  
Jake was looking at him. Did that particular non-expression say: Hamilton's in my line of sight, nothing to see here? Or Wow! Hamilton! Skin! Wow!  
  
"What?" Ham said again. Smells of sunscreen! Wow! his flagging optimism supplied.  
  
"You have to get on the bike" Jake said patiently.  
  
Awkwardly self conscious, he clambered aboard, and Jake settled sidesaddle on the frame between his outstretched arms. Some of Jake's spiked up hair got in his eyes. They were almost but not quite touching.  
  
Normally, Pratt's sense of personal space extended yards beyond anyone else's. Hamilton didn't think he'd been this close in before. The guy was as tense as a wire. "Comfortable?"  
  
Jake twisted sufficiently to give him a withering look. It was less intimidating, a breath away. Hamilton was distracted by the fine sheen of sweat on Jake's temples. He must have run across the grounds.  
  
Sweaty guy. Sweaty guy equals gross, Hamilton thought. He thought, I'm reacting to him because of a rumour from outsiders. How dumb is that? Like Beatrice and that guy in that lame play.  
  
Or was this real fascination. Till now Jake had been a comfort zone. They connected on some wavelength. It was never completely relaxing - Jake challenged him, often. In fact, any time Ham bullshitted, Jake said something sarcastic or gave him this _look_. The thing was, he had flashes of deja vu around this guy that made him hope maybe Jake could unlock all this.  
  
A spiritual rapport was no explanation for the way he kept _noticing_ what Jake looked like. He'd been noticing for days, and trying not to analyse himself for it. He could sketch the outline of Jake's lips from memory. And, what with the smirking, it looked like everybody in Rawley knew that. But, they didn't smirk so much at him. They smirked at Jake. Was it charity to the head injured? Or was he - he perked - the butch one?  
  
He moved his hands closer together on the handle bars. Jake was fenced in more tightly, but they weren't touching. Touching would be pervy. He moved his hands because, safety. They were turning onto the public road.  
  
Jake's head hung forward. He could see the fine grain of the skin on the nape of his neck. He thought he should keep his eyes on the road.  
  
And, yeah, he was noticing Jake, but he was super aware of everything. He kept waiting for memory to cascade around him. Something had to trigger it.  
  
And, yeah, he liked Jake. Genuinely liked him. Great personality, really cool, nice guy. Interesting opinions - he wondered what Jake thought of Shakespeare's Beatrice. Jake probably thought she was a moron.  
  
See, that was the thing. Apart from the guy thing - and there were way too many worms in that can for him to even get started on it now, Jake was Not Romantic. And Ham was pretty sure he himself was. You know, flowers, pulling a chair out for a lady, sappy nicknames.  
  
Jake was more - Hamilton's brain refused to go down that road. Okay, stick with Not Romantic. Best not to fill in the details.  
  
"You're very quiet" Jake commented.  
  
"Just thinking." Suave and enigmatic, good.  
  
"You know, all couples have periods of miscommunication. It doesn't mean things are, like, doomed."  
  
Ham didn't want to talk about his parents. He knew it was probably a blip, and if it wasn't, what could he do? He was pedalling toward Denial. Distraction would work, too. They were nearly in town. "Is this personal experience talking?"  
  
Oh. No. Jake changed his shirt. Did he have some chick in town he wanted to impress?

:  
  
When they stopped by Friendly's Scout was on one side of the counter, serving, and Will was on the other, being served. Scout looked at Ham and Jake, and smiled. A welcoming smile. Not, in any way, a smirk, Ham assured himself.  
  
"I have enough tutoring this year not to need a shift" Will explained at Jake's questioning look.  
  
"That's good."  
  
"Yeah. Finn schedules tutoring around my clases - I don't have to keep swapping rotas and making special arrangements for every crew meet." He grinned at Scout, who was presumably still doing this.  
  
"So. Tutor guy. What are the freshers like?" Jake heaved himself onto a high stool.  
  
"Just kids." Will shrugged. "God, were we ever that young?"  
  
Scout and Jake gave him amused, ironic looks.  
  
Will continued "They were so freaked out the first couple of weeks" (Ham could relate) "but they're levelling out now."  
  
Ham watched Scout fill two glasses of Coke at the machine.  
  
"It figures" Jake said. "I mean, you build your whole persona then. You're dealing with this new environment and everyone's judging your decisions." He sounded as if he'd given this a lot of thought. He'd been to, like, a dozen schools.  
  
Scout slid the Cokes in front of Ham and Jake. "Persona?" He burst out laughing.  
  
"All right, reputation" Jake said impatiently. "Your first week pushes you into a role.." He took a sip. "There was one place I went. I was mad at my mom-"  
  
"You're always mad at your mom."  
  
"Shut up Calhoun. - mad at my mom about going off to England for eight months. So I was a total Ryder in English - it didn't help that we were studying the same Orton play she was in - and I flunked."  
  
"That was stupid." Will was obsessive about grades. Dad liked that in a boy, Ham knew.  
  
"I didn't think. The next school I was like a different person." Jake looked into all their faces. He had a really intense gaze. "The point is, my identity for a semester was based on how I felt _that week_." Jake sighed, and asked Will "Seriously, Will, remember your first week at Rawley?"  
  
"It was scary" Will admitted, sounding thoughtful now. "All those snobby bluebloods-" he grinned at Scout "- and a lot of the time guys were referencing things I'd never heard of."  
  
"Waldorf" Scout said confusingly.  
  
"Well, I'd eaten the _salad_." Will and Scout shared a laugh. Ham glanced at Jake. Jake wasn't getting it either.  
  
"But, you came from this town." It wasn't like he'd crossed America, Hamilton thought.  
  
"Yeah. I spent years laughing at Rawley guys. It wasn't helpful."  
  
Oh. Will had been that kind of townie. The kind who stood in mini-mobs and jeered so you wanted the ground to swallow you whole. Ham used to think of killer retorts to them, but never, unfortunately, when it counted. He came up with them after he got home. Speaking of, that guy coming in was one of those townies.  
  
"Sean!" The other three sounded delighted. Well, Will sounded delighted, Jake sounded mildly pleased, and Scout sounded luke warm.  
  
"Hey man." To Hamilton's astonishment, the townie thug - Sean? - thumped him on the shoulder. "How ya doing?"  
  
"Uh, okay." Hamilton darted a look at Jake. As a friend, Jake should be warning him about these things.  
  
"He can't remember last year" Scout explained officiously. Since when had Calhoun become tourguide to the freakshow that was Fleming, Hamilton wondered, irritated.  
  
"I heard" Sean said sympathetically. Wait, they were friends? "Too bad, man."  
  
All right. This guy, Sean? ok, Sean, then, was his friend. Because, last year he had gone from zero friends to knowing all these guys. Who were his friends. Not that any of them gave him the headsup or anything when.. uh, _why_ exactly was Scout doing that malevolent squint thing at Sean.  
  
Hamilton nudged the side of Jake's foot with his. "Jake?"  
  
Will was talking about how the school cleared it for him to spend next weekend with his folks. Mr Krudsky had some carpentry project, and he was needed to help. Sean was listening, and Scout was glowering at Sean.  
  
"Jake, what's Scout's problem with the townie?"  
  
"Long story. Hey. Bella!"  
  
Oh great. Jake had gone from friend who wouldn't tell Hamilton stuff to friend who not only wouldn't help him out but was all over some chick. When Jake changed his clothes, that was for Bella. Ham knew it.  
  
"Bella." "Bella." "Hey."  
  
The other three were all up for her too, Hamilton noted bitterly. He gave Bella a dismissive nod. She could take her pick of Jake, Sean, Will or Scout. That should be enough for her.  
  
Obviously, she was going to go for Jake. Because, who wouldn't? With the eyes, and the smouldering. Jake had Will's intelligence and Scout's ability to focus on another person for ten minutes at a stretch. And Sean's - Ham couldn't remember anything about Sean. He had an impressive jeering laugh when he was in ringleader mode, but Ham was pretty sure this wasn't a helpful boyfriend asset.  
  
"Oh, Hamilton." She sounded all sincere and concerned. Huh. "How are you doing?"  
  
"Ok." And I know you, how? he felt like asking.  
  
"Bella is dating Scout" Will said, and Sean's face froze momentarily.  
  
"No sh- I mean - You - Scout?" Ham looked at her again. She was gorgeous. "Cool."  
  
"Thanks for the validation." There was an edge to her voice. "I came over to see if you guys wanted to watch videos at the gas station."  
  
"You're not working?" Will asked.  
  
"It's Grace's shift." To Hamilton, she added "Grace is my sister."  
  
Hot Bella had a sister. "A sister. I'm an only - you know this." Ham wished Bella could have a brother instead. It would be just his luck if Grace was cute, and a wild girl. And appealed to New Yorkers. Before the mental babble got any more disturbing, he burst out "Is she good at Playstation?"  
  
Sean laughed. "Is that your type?"  
  
Sean had a horrible laugh. In fact, Sean was generally annoying. Hamilton thought again, Sean is my friend. I like Sean. (Did I get taken over by aliens last year?)  
  
"Just making conversation." That was Jake rescuing him. "_I'm_ good at Playstation" he reminded Ham pointedly.  
  
Well, duh. That was why Ham asked, because he was worried about Jake and Bella's sister. Wait, Jake was being territorial. Over him. Ham liked the idea, and contemplated it a moment, but on consideration rejected it. It didn't make sense.  
  
Scout was telling Bella how much longer his shift had to run. "..I'll be over in twenty minutes."  
  
Right. The video decision had gotten made while Ham wasn't paying attention. Will slid off his high stool, saying "Kenneth Branagh? Shakespeare?"  
  
"No." Sean, Bella and Jake, more or less in unison.  
  
"Terminator" Scout called after them before the door slammed.  
  
They sighed.  
  
"Don't you start" Bella said to Ham.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"You always pick some Art film with weird camera angles" Sean said.  
  
He did? Well that was borderline cool. "You're into car chases?" he guessed, looking at Sean.  
  
"And Jake" Bella said hastily "does this running commentary in every film, where he's met all the character actors on Broadway."  
  
Good for Jake. They should be impressed.  
  
"I won't. I promise." Jake looked sheepish.  
  
Ham glanced casually back at Friendly's in time to see his mom and Finn go in. They must be working on some project. He made a note to ask Mom about that. It would be unfair to take her for granted just cause he had two parents now.


	8. on yer bike

  
  
The four Rawley boys went back late. They were so far past curfew it was a joke but none of the others commented on the fact. Hamilton didn't say anything either. He watched Will and Scout cycle ahead. "How come Scout isn't in a sportscar?"  
  
"His dad has this thing about poverty being character building. Sean's pretty funny about the Calhoun idea of poor."  
  
Ham had heard him getting at Scout all evening. "That's why Sean hates Scout." Envy. It explained a lot.  
  
"Hates.. nahh. Resents, I think. I dunno."  
  
Ham took his top off and folded it into a pad. The night breeze made him shiver.  
  
Jake shivered in sympathy, the way you mirror someone's body language when you're looking at them too hard. Jake said "Bella used to date Sean before she fell for Scout."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Jake arranged himself on the bike, stretching his arms to grip the handlebars for balance. "I don't understand it either. I'm kind of on the fringes of that group. There was a big drama going on when Scout got together with Bella. I don't know the details."  
  
"Uh huh." Jake's weight made the gradient a struggle. It took most of Ham's breath.  
  
"When you don't tell guys things, you can't expect them to tell you their secrets." The silence was drawing Jake into talking. Interesting.  
  
"Did I know your secrets?" Ham asked the back of his friend's head. That beer had been a mistake. Or maybe it was the intimate dark.  
  
"..yeah."  
  
"Tell me."  
  
Jake said "You're a different person now."  
  
That wasn't what the specialists said. Circumstances had changed, not him. "Why didn't I tell my folks I'm bi?"  
  
Jake startled, and the bike lurched.  
  
Not the first beer. He blamed the second beer. Or the fourth.  
  
"Bi?" Yeah, he had said it out loud, and now Jake was parroting key phrases in a dumbfounded voice. Generally Ham was the one shocked into a stupor by a change in the universe. He had a flash of memory of standing opposite Jake in a confined space, formalwear. Jake had just devastated him - how? - and Ham was clawing for control of the situation, or his body. Shaking off the paralysis enough to speak would be good. If he knew what to say. The flash ended.  
  
There had been much beer tonight. Hamilton would have expected seventeen year olds to have better heads for beer. Curfew breaking rebel seventeen year olds, anyway.  
  
Jake scrambled off the bike. They had passed the last houses. Ham skidded in a wide arc, yards beyond Jake. They were in the woods between town and school. Jake was shocked. Ham was shocked that Jake was shocked. Jake was shocked that Ham was- He could have sworn that Jake would know this. It was mostly girls, in a generalised way, and Jake, in a less generalised way. He'd keep that quiet, in case Jake took it as a slur on his Bruce Willis factor. It hadn't needed the Estella/Miss Havisham rant in class to prove to Ham that Jake had big, big gender role issues.  
  
"You're bi?"  
  
Weird. His square old Dad would take this as smoothly as Mr I.want.to.be.like.James.Dean.except.the.dead.part.thank.you, here. "Liking the look of girls And boys clued me in." Sarcasm. He could do sarcasm.  
  
"Ham you get excited about the look of" Jake gestured wildly. "trees."  
  
Trees. Rock formations. A skein of birds in the sky. Golden brown eyes, like clear amber. He'd spent a while telling himself it was art aesthetic. He'd grant Jake that.  
  
"I mean, do you like-"  
  
Ham waited. Was Jake going to name himself? This conversation might go better without the beer. He didn't trust his powers of self expression.  
  
"Will?" Jake asked.  
  
"Will! No." This conversation wouldn't have happened without the beer.  
  
"See" Jake said, like he'd proved a point.  
  
"Freckles. I thought you knew this."  
  
"I know Will has freckles." A careful monotone.  
  
Jake was way too sober for Ham to cope with. Beer was bad. "Get back on the bike." He felt annoyed. "I'm not gonna molest you."  
  
"I know that." Jake came over, moving slowly. "I was just surprised." He stooped to get Ham's top off the ground and shook the dust and grit out.  
  
"I thought you knew this. I thought we were together. That's what everyone at school thinks." Aside from how truly unpleasant it tasted, alcohol was amazing. He knew this was stuff he should die before saying, and he honestly didn't care.  
  
Jake looked up from the cloth he was folding to see whatever he could see of Ham's expression in the moonlight. Jake had had only one beer. Apparantly that was his habit. He'd joked that he was too much of a control freak to get wasted. The others had shown zero surprise at that. "That's the rumour" Jake admitted. "I'm not what you think I am."  
  
As if Ham knew enough about Jake to have preconceptions. He didn't think Jake was anything. He didn't know enough to guess. "What do I think you are?" Impatient, he picked Jake up and dumped him onto the bicycle frame.  
  
"Hey." Jake hated that.  
  
"What? I want to get home before breakfast."  
  
"Yeah, God forbid you should lose a meal" Jake muttered. He tried another tack. "Look. Hamilton. Ever since you've come back, you've been very-" Jake took a deep breath "(don't take this the wrong way) law abiding. Son of the Dean."  
  
"I was always the son of the Dean."  
  
"Not like this."  
  
"Doesn't make me your enemy" Ham said gruffly.  
  
Jake slanted a look over his shoulder. What was he so afraid of?  
  
"I know you're a hacker. I know about your stupid bike-"  
  
"You remember?"  
  
"I found the helmet." Hamilton was offended. Normally, Jake treated him like he had a brain. He'd shown Ham a couple of good tricks with his computer two days ago, and he hadn't patronised him once, even though Ham had had no clue what they were doing. Ham had a brain. He could take evidence and work it out. He'd be together tomorrow. He could be, like, Sherlock Hamilton. Tomorrow.  
  
Stupid Jake.

* * *

Hamilton expected to wake in the cruel grip of a hangover the next day, but he woke, and he poured himself liquidly out of bed, and he got to crew only the usual few minutes late, and he rowed - not well, but adequately - and there was no pain. He was very very tired.  
  
"I don't have a hangover" he muttered to Jake. Apparently he was still speaking before thinking.  
  
"Alcohol still in your system." Jake moved away and got his shoulder under the far end of the boat.  
  
Ham thought about the things he'd said last night. He had come across like a complete girl. Hearts and flowers. Hefting the shell across the damp grass before the sun baked the early morning chill out of the day, he still didn't care. He had a suspicion he would care later.  
  
Jake wasn't speaking to him, wasn't looking at him, and was standing at the far side of all the guys present, forcing a conversation on Finn. Obviously, Jake was upset about last night. Ham wondered if he'd started packing again.  
  
Ham thought he'd better make the most of his beer fuelled bravado before it ebbed. "Have you got a pen?" he asked Will.  
  
"Yeah - why?"  
  
"Can I borrow it?"  
  
Scout heard. "You're not going to get inspired by lyric verse at weird times too?" He looked horrified.  
  
Will clouted the back of his roomie's head.  
  
"What? It could be a head injury thing.."  
  
Ham tore a page out of a sport equipment brochure and scrawled We've Got to Talk on it. Truly, he was visiting the planet Girl. He brushed past Jake, his eyes on Finn, and kind of reverse-pickpocketed the note into the back of Jake's pants. Jake tensed but didn't turn. He had a nice ass under those cargo pants.  
  
Finn was talking about how Love transcended the conventional rules of Society. Ham wondered if Jake agreed.  
  
"..it takes courage to defy - Mr Fleming, what is it?"  
  
Finn meant him when he said Mr Fleming. "Jake needs to come for breakfast at my place. Mom asked."  
  
Finn despatched them both at once. "Far be it from me to go against the wishes of a lady." Ryder was right; Finn was a berk.  
  
Jake said "We've got to talk."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"But not now."  
  
"Yeah." Ham didn't think they'd make much sense. "Tired?"  
  
"Yeah." Jake yawned. "Stayed up and hacked, last night."  
  
Ham gave him a disapproving look.  
  
"I needed to unwind."  
  
Unwind. Jake had _no right_ to feel wound. He was the big city boy, and he was meanly leaving Ham to do all the propositioning. It was so unfair, Hamilton thought. He wished for a bottle of water. He could glug it in a provocative way, or something.  
  
All right. It wouldn't provoke Jake. But it would help the dehydration.  
  
Jake was unfolding the note he'd passed. "We Need to Talk" he read aloud. He grinned a little crookedly.  
  
"I think we covered that."  
  
"At least we're on the same page." Jake refolded the sheet and tucked it away. From one of the innumerable pockets on his pants, he brought out a small bottle of water. "Want some?"  
  
"Thanks." Ham drained it.  
  
Jake stared ruefully at the empty plastic container. "I was thinking of sharing."  
  
"Oh. Sorry." Ham let them in by the kitchen door. The dogs greeted Jake as an old friend. "Shh. Shh." He caught Jake's eye. "My folks aren't great morning people at the weekend."  
  
Jake nodded. "Breakfast in the garden?"  
  
"Cool."  
  
The Dean's house had a small private garden, fenced off from the school grounds. At the end furthest from the house were some gnarled crab apple trees. "They look like monster bonsai" Jake commented.  
  
"Ummph." Ham said through a mouth of croissant.  
  
"No, seriously." Jake often acted bemused by the natural world. Ham suspected a put-on.  
  
"Eat." Jake didn't eat enough. "Not you" he told the hopeful dogs. "You had breakfast before I went out."  
  
Jake delved through the fruit bowl they'd swiped from Ham's lounge. "You're like you were when we first met." He offered Ham an apple.  
  
"I changed a lot in this last year." That much was clear.  
  
"Uh huh. How's it going with your Dad?"  
  
His Dad was leaving town this afternoon. He'd be back next week. "Cool. I can tell him anything."  
  
Jake looked at him blankly.  
  
Ham leaned in and said, low and very fast, embarrassed by the words "Look, I know you have this thing about the Dean. And you think he can't handle Us. But he's not gonna expel you or anything. He's-"  
  
Ham was going to say, he's a cool guy disguised in a suit. As disguises go, the Dean's formality was..pretty convincing. Jake probably knew this. He'd had that year to find out.  
  
"- he's not mean, or unreasonable." Ham finished.  
  
"There is no Us" Jake burst out.  
  
That didn't sit with the Jake and Ham he saw mirrored in their classmates' eyes.  
  
"You don't have to feel weird around me."  
  
Yeah, easy for him to say, Ham thought. "Well, I do."  
  
Jake had no response but an awkward silence.  
  
The blanket denial was annoying Hamilton. He said resentfully "Everyone thinks I'm dumb. Because I don't make speeches like Krudsky (and Krudsky is gonna Turn Into Finn, you watch) ..I notice things. I see things the whole time. I know we were an item."  
  
"We were." Slow and reluctant, Jake finally admitted it. His eyes were fixed on a daisy he was tearing apart. "But, I've been thinking." One petal at a time, he threw it aside. "This year is a fresh start."  
  
Jake never stopped thinking. It sucked that Ham never knew the thoughts. "Fresh start" he prompted.  
  
"Last year. It was incredibly stressful, and both our reputations got shot to hell, and our grades went down the pan." Jake raised his eyes to Ham's. "You hated sneaking around - you said so - and I hated the guilt. We're sophomores now. It's time to focus on exam results and how our resumes will look."  
  
Ham barely heard. Jake's eyes told him that Jake didn't want this. He'd made this decision, and wanted to be talked out of it, or, he hadn't made this decision, and thought he should. Either way, Ham wasn't giving up on them. 


	9. parental units

This is all non-J/H bits - drat.

* * *

That afternoon Mr Trent didn't show for their history class on the west lawn. It was only the rise of European nationalism in the runup to 1848, no big deal. Ham thought Mr Trent was meeting with the Dean before Dad left. Jake, tired now, was just relieved to drowse in the shade.  
  
A breeze rustled the leaves of the tree he was lying under. The dogs were near the water scamming vulnerable freshmen into running and throwing sticks for them. Dad always claimed they'd treat a burglar the same way. Ham watched idly. Will was fifty yards across the lawn, babbling to Finn. Will was respectful of all adult authority. "It seems kind of weird" Ham observed cautiously. "He's only going to be away for the weekend."  
  
Jake half sat up, saw who Ham was talking about, and flopped back down on the grass. "Father figure."  
  
"Will has a dad. I'm pretty sure." Will could have Ham's dad too, for the asking. The Dean was totally impressed by his brains and his attitude.  
  
"Scout says he has some kind of deal with Mr Krudsky." Jake sounded sleepy.  
  
All night hacking, Ham thought disapprovingly. He poked the other boy in the ribs. If Jake wore fewer layers, this heat wouldn't wipe him out so much. "What?"  
  
Jake opened his eyes and squinted. The sun had moved since he got settled. He shifted to follow the shade before explaining. Either Will's dad drank, or beat him. Scout, sworn to secrecy, had been casting out dark hints. Jake, who clearly suspected Scout of over dramatizing, explained that, then collapsed in a pointed fashion.  
  
"Can't he keep a secret?" Ham was shocked. One thing he knew for sure. If he told Jake anything, Jake would be like a swiss vault. Even if it was hot, or shocking, or.. he could be sure of his friend.  
  
Oblivious to Ham's smug reflections, Jake lay with his forearm thrown up to shield his eyes. All Ham could see of his face was his mouth. "Scout? A secret? Nope."  
  
Ham felt sorry for Will. Aside from his brains, which, yeah, was a big aside, he didn't have the breaks. No money, a mean dad; this was why he was so driven. "Poor Will."  
  
"That's what Will feels, yeah."  
  
Sometimes Jake made no sense at all. "Huh?"  
  
"He's so sorry for himself. Why add to it." Jake added inexplicably "I saw him with his mom. His mom's cool."  
  
At sea, Ham said "Well, moms -" Moms **had** to love you. It was hormones, or something.  
  
"A long way ahead of Scout's mom" Jake judged crisply.  
  
Was Jake judging mothers on some sort of scale? Ham was going to ask for details, but then the Dean called him. He must be about to leave. "Coming, Dad."  
  
He jumped up but paused. Jake was staring at him with a weird grieving look, like he was Luke Skywalker being corrupted by Darth Vader. Ham frowned at himself. He thought the most freaky things around Jake.  
  
"See ya when I see ya" Jake said. The expression had passed. Jake had big parent issues. And no dad. That was why he got like this when Ham was being son-of-the-Dean.  
  
Ham stood awkwardly, not wanting to go, until his Dad called him again.

* * *

:

In the car park, Ham could see a checked off list in the Dean's hand.  
  
_draft timetable & pass to Sheri before leaving  
appointment w bank  
must return first edition to Ffoulkes  
exact change for toll  
compose speech re logistics (economies of scale, deals with suppliers)  
dryclean lucky suit  
pack cellphone  
& laptop  
& barcharts  
& asprin  
_  
The Dean made a speech designed for a six year old, about Ham being the man of the house while he was gone, and taking care of his mother.  
  
"Dad. I'm six - no, seventeen."  
  
"It's still true" the Dean protested. "I do want you to give Kate your company."  
  
Ham hadn't been spending so much time with Mom lately. There'd been Jake, and Dad. And school, and Jake. And other guys who weren't Jake. And Dad. And Jake.  
  
Dad had been spending more time with Mom. Those arguments. Were he and Mom all right? Hamilton wasn't going to ask. Dad was tired and down. Well, that was nothing new. Mom looked stressed. Now, that **was** new.  
  
Ham had better make some time for Mom. He could ask about the project she was doing with Finn, show an interest.  
  
But, when he went to talk to Mom, she was preoccupied. She was tidying the Art room. "Not now Munchie. I'm busy."  
  
"Busy. That project with Finn, huh?" Ham said knowingly.  
  
Kate stared at him. "Project with Finn? What are you talking about?"  
  
"Well, I've seen you meeting each other lately -"  
  
"We run into each other - it's a small school - it's adult,work - not interesting." She slammed a cupboard door shut before the foolscap could slide out all over the floor.  
  
That was totally fractured English from Mom. Mom and Dad had this big thing about speaking in sentences. He'd heard Mom pick up the head of the English department on his grammar. "Yeah. I figured it was some kind of English/Art crossover. Anything I can do?"  
  
Mom looked uncomfortable. "No."  
  
Hamilton was relieved. "Okay. Finn and I don't really-"  
  
"What?" When he didn't answer, Kate coaxed "..Hamilton?"  
  
Hamilton looked away. "We don't do well together. He thinks I'm dumb, and I don't like him. I mean, I totally respect him -" he added hastily. His parents were all about respect for the faculty.  
  
Kate said very definitely "Finn has nothing to do with you, Munchkin." She stopped moving round the room briefly.  
  
Huh? Finn was his _tutor._ Oh well, the point was to spend time with Mom. Letting it go, he asked "Do you want me to help you make supper tonight?"  
  
The uncomfortable expression returned to Kate's face in full force. "Actually, I have a meeting."  
  
"All evening?" Microwave time. Crap.  
  
Kate frowned, annoyed and a bit guilty. "It might take a while. We're discussing whether to include Emily Dickinson in the syllabus."  
  
The syllabus was too male, yada yada. Hamilton had heard Mom ranting about this. "But, Emily Dickinson? She's the Death Lady poet." Not to mention, she was the kind of poet who he didn't know what she was going on about until Will made a speech. And frequently _after_ Will's speech he had to take the Message on trust.  
  
"Are you putting in a vote for Jane Austen?" Kate asked sweetly.  
  
"No!" Horrifying thought. Mom would never get Finn to teach Austen, he told himself. It couldn't be done. Wait, it wasn't an either/or thing. He suggested George Eliot. Dad's favourite book was Middlemarch. "You might get her past Finn's girl-dar."  
  
Kate grinned. "I think they broke the news about George Eliot's true gender sometime during his English degree. Imagine his shock."  
  
"Yeah, but Finn always claims we'd have problems taking women writers seriously."  
  
"You don't agree?" She was curious.  
  
Ham had a problem taking the nineteenth century seriously, but it hadn't stopped the faculty assigning him to read Thoreau. "That's Finn's argument. I bet, say, Scout, or Harry never heard of Mary Ann Evans. So, smuggle a woman writer into Rawley under a man's name."  
  
Kate laughed aloud. "Subversive."

* * *

When he dropped by Will and Scout's dorm they were talking about Finn and something Fleming. He caught the end of it - his name? what was that about? "Rumour? What rumour?" he demanded.  
  
Scout turned to him, caught and guilty.  
  
"This rumour wouldn't happen to concern me?" Hamilton demanded suspiciously.  
  
"Something Ryder said" Scout said.  
  
The three of them could see Ryder through the window. He was getting in Jake's face, and Jake was giving him that "who are you and what are you doing on my planet" look he reserved for guys too stupid to talk to. Distracted, Ham watched them. Ryder was a jerk.  
  
"..so, are you with?" Scout was saying.  
  
Ham had missed what he'd said. "What?"  
  
"It's Saturday night. We're all going to Carson. I think it's illegal for a teen to stay in on Saturday night" Scout urged.  
  
"I'm staying in" Will corrected him. "Putting up shelves."  
  
"Krudsky the rule breaker" Ham joked. "Actually, I'm staying in, too. I'll have the house to myself." There was something he wanted to do.  
  
"So, "we're all" translates as, you and Bella" Will teased Scout.  
  
Scout seemed to be okay with that.


	10. Will's weekend

Thank you all for the encouragement -

* * *

  
  
Empty house. Golden opportunity.  
  
Ham had been thinking. Surely if they'd hung out that much, he would have more pictures of Jake.  
  
He leafed through the pictures he'd taken over the last year. Some of them were very good. He wondered how he'd got the idea to take Will and Scout out of focus and make this shot all about the twin slanted, distorted shadows they cast in a dawn light. He'd been experimenting with filters, with mixed success. Here was a studio-type portrait of Bella, all dressed up, posed and self conscious. This: cloud formations. He'd kept it, so it must have meant something, but he didn't get it now. This one had been taken in a cheap hairdressers shop. He had been playing with the way the mirrors on opposite walls bounced the contents of the room - in this case, Will, looking badtempered in a barber's chair - backwards and forwards forever. Here was Ryder, holding court, the camera angled upward to catch his face against the sky so that it loomed threateningly over his cronies.  
  
Where were the pictures of Jake?  
  
Empty house. Golden opportunity. Search.  
  
Looking on top of the wardrobe. Under the bed. Under the mattress - an old copy of **Seventeen** magazine. He'd got it for the fashion shoot, probably. Looking behind the **Third Eye Blind** posters. Looking inside the frame of the chest of drawers - he had to pull the drawers all the way out. Score! A diary.  
  
He paused for a moment of yay. Oh. His hands were filthy.  
  
The spelling and handwriting were a mess. It was an old diary.  
_Aug 4th 90: This is the jurnal and testment of Hamilton Fleming. I live in Rawley. I have a Mom and a dad. I don't have brothers or sisters. I keep asking. Mommy would go for it. Daddy says if I am a good boy I can have a puppy.  
Aug 5th: Mommy and me drew pictures. We crayoned rainbow patterns and then we hid them under black paint. But when we scratched off shapes the colours showed thru. I drew a dog.  
Aug 6th: Everybody here is old people. The big boys at the school are no good. Curtis is mean.  
Aug 10th: I wanted to remind Dad about the puppy but he was talking grownup stuff to Mommy. It was about the school. Boring! But then, they asked for my opinion, cos I'm nearly a big boy. Like those Curtis and Schmidt guys. Only I'm not mean. Dad thinks the big boys don't work in English cos they think literature is girly. He wants the next English head to run sport too. Then, they will think Lit is cool. Mommy doesn't agree. She argued lots. I agreed with Daddy. Maybe he'll take me to the pet shop now?  
_A very old diary. What a onetrackmind kid he'd been. Hamilton carried on.  
  
Looking on the floor of the wardrobe, at the back. Looking inside his guitar case. Behind the precarious stack of cds. (There! there was the instruction manual for cubase. Whatever else got found, the evening wasn't a total wash. He'd take a look and, later on, he could impress Jake by getting all computer expert on his ass.)  
  
The cover of his portfolio felt uneven when he ran his hand over it. Cautiously, he peeled at the edges. Inside the lining were - Hamilton stared. These were the pictures, all right. What the hell was Jake doing in a dress? Wait, wait, maybe he had a sister. Ham didn't remember him mentioning a sister, but Ham's memory wasn't a big help lately.  
  
He flipped rapidly through the pictures, looking for a clearer image of the face. The figure was blocked by trees, or distant, on a motorcycle, or cradling one of the dogs, but it was definitely in a dress. Different dresses. Different weathers and lights. All these had been taken at different times and hidden together like a guilty secret. And.. here was a clear one of the face.. Jake.  
  
Yeah. Jake. In a dress. This was, like, so weird. That relationship Jake kept denying up and down - yeah, the relationship with _him_ - was obviously.. well, kinkier.. Hamilton's thoughts trailed off.  
  
He was staring at long, bare legs.  
  
One of the reasons Hamilton could not possibly have expected this was, he'd've expected a guy in drag to go for taffeta, sequins, feather boas. None of that was Jake. Minimalist as ever, a plain wine coloured shift skimmed the tops of long, long legs. Ham stared, his eyes so wide it hurt. He'd seen Jake like this before. This was his best guy friend. He photographed him like this. But then he'd forgotten about it. How had that happened?  
  
He wasn't into this, anyway. He'd seen Tootsie. Dustin Hoffman hadn't done a single pervy thing for him.  
  
He, H Fleming, was officially middle of the road guy when it came to romance. If he'd been a cd, he'd've been in the Easy Listenin' racks. Jake, now, Jake would be some slow, purring Jazz or Blues. Or a complicated symphony where a thousand instruments alternately tangled and soared. You couldn't track it all; there was too much going on, but you would want to understand, as Symphony Jake rose to a crescendo, everything that he was.  
  
And, yeah, that metaphor was getting out of hand. Crescendo, huh, and.. what the hell had been going on in that last year?  
  
Even minimalist fake boobs, he reflected. Long pause. And no adams apple.  
  
Oh God.  
  
Long pause.  
  
Again.  
  
Oh God.

If he were a different kind of person, Hamilton would have stormed across to the dorms, let himself in, and confronted Jake. He knew where the keys lived. He could do it.  
  
Part of him wanted to do that. He could yell a lot, justifiably. He could tell Jake how stupid and unfair this was, ditto. He could get apologies. God, Jake owed him for this.  
  
He expected _heartfelt_ apologies. Heartfelt.  
  
Part of him wasn't up for confrontation, not yet. He needed to process. He promised himself much yelling, later.  
  
Why?  
  
Why in the first place? No, that wasn't exercising him most right now. He'd get to that later.  
  
Why, having trusted him, did Jake not trust him second time around? Aside from the Dad thing. And the discussions - a _lot_ of discussions, now he came to think of it - on the theory and practice of narc-ing.  
  
Incurably fairminded, he supposed Jake had a reason for this year's paranoia. He wondered if Jake would ever have gotten round to the "Hey, I'm a girl" if he hadn't worked it out. He got angry again.  
  
How did this situation get set up? It was crazy, insane. Why was Jacqueline doing this? At some point, this situation had to implode. Jake was smart, but he had this terrible habit of getting into more than he could handle.  
  
Jacqueline. Oh.  
  
Oh yes. Jake's name was Jacqueline.  
  
Things were coming back to him, but not everything. Details were snagging in his mind but not the big picture. He still thought Sean was a jerk. So that proved he wasn't on board with last year's version of reality.  
  
The sound of the phone ringing was welcome. Above all else, he wanted to Stop Thinking.  
  
It was Sean.  
  
He was freshly surprised that Sean had his number. Too weird.  
  
Half his brain circling Jake's extraordinary secret, Hamilton let the earlier part of McGrail's tirade wash over him. He was wound up about something, but Sean was none of Ham's business. Now, Jake, no, Jacqueline, was his affair. Sean was saying something about Will.  
  
Will had a problem. Goodbye to the Stop Thinking thing. "What's up with Will?"  
  
"I _told_ you."  
  
Ham gave Sean the honesty he would have given a friend. "I wasn't listening."  
  
Apparently Sean could sigh and groan at the same time.  
  
It sounded freakish, Ham thought dispassionately. "Is the Will thing serious?" he wanted to know. If it wasn't, he could go back to worrying about Jake.  
  
"He's been hurt." Sean was stressed.  
  
Hurt? "What? How badly? Where is he, how do you know?"  
  
"Get down here in your corvette and get him to hospital." There was an irritating whine in Sean's voice.  
  
"I don't _have_ a car." New Rawley kids always thought everyone up at the school was Richie Rich. There wasn't time to go into the rich/poor divide, or explain in words of one syllable which side Ham was on. Will needed hospital. "Where are you? Where's Will?"  
  
"I'm at Will's. I can't get him to a doctor on my bike."  
  
Ham nodded, pointlessly since Sean couldn't see him. In his head he was running through the guys with cars. They were all out for Saturday night. Bella, he knew, could hotwire any vehicle, but she was in Carson now. It would have to be the other option. Will was gonna kill him. "Stay there" he told Sean. "I'll get to you."  
  
As he slapped the phone down, it occurred to him. Will's home address was right there; he knew it. He slammed the house door behind him and pelted across the grounds to the main school block.  
  
Breathless when he got to his destination, he beat on the door with both fists.

* * *

"There's no need to break the door down" snapped Finn. Ham looked past him to see how ready his Mom would be to come and help Ham help Will.  
  
Behind Finn, Mom was pushing her curls into place. The textbooks had never come out of her bag, but then, the room was lit to a cosy glow, not bright enough to read by. Mom had kicked off her shoes. Spike heels made her feet hurt, she always said. It confused Ham that women would wear uncomfortable clothes or diet and then whine about it. He was never going to date a chick who did stuff like that, he'd always promised himself. Some music he recognised from the classic rock station was playing. Finn and Mom had killed most of a bottle of white wine.  
  
"It's an emergency" Ham told Finn. He was glad to see how relaxed things looked; Mom needed a friend and some good times. Even so, he hoped that Finn had downed most of the wine. Mom was going to have to drive.  
  
"An emergency?" Irritation and concern were fighting on the adults' faces. So far, irritation was winning.  
  
"Will. He's been hurt."  
  
Instantly, Mom was all wife-of-the-Dean. "Which dorm?" she asked crisply.  
  
Finn shook his head. "Off campus" he told her. Then: "What happened?" It wasn't like Finn to be brusque. Generally he was more subclause and unnecessary reference guy. Ham knew he was worried about Will.  
  
"I think, his dad. Sean says he's alone at his house."  
  
"His dad "happened"?" Mom asked with some sarcasm.  
  
"It's possible, Kate." Finn looked troubled. "I've heard stories in town -" He paused, looked at Hamilton, and said "We'll talk about it later."  
  
Mom shrugged.  
  
They were reacting too slow. "Will needs help now." Ham emphasised the now part.  
  
"Where are his parents?" Mom still hadn't made a move toward the door.  
  
"You're thinking about school liability" Ham guessed. "Mom, he's on his own. He only has Sean." He didn't rate Sean's help as worth much.  
  
"Sean's the baseball buddy."  
  
Hearing this, Ham gave Finn an astonished look, only to find him raking through a bowl by the door for keys. He was amazed that Finn knew about a New Rawley boy. Finn himself was once New Rawley, but he kept it in his past. Finn held up the car keys. "Let's go."  
  
"Wait" Kate said. "Liability is an issue. Steven would not like it."  
  
"You're wrong. He'd want us to do the right thing. Dad's all about taking responsibility." Ham addressed Finn as much as his mother, now.  
  
Finn twitched.  
  
"Finn" Kate said sharply.  
  
Ham looked from one to the other of them. He didn't understand. He remembered everything, and it didn't help.  
  
"It's not the ideal time to be playing Mellors, Kate." Finn headed out.  
  
"That's not how I see you" she said tautly. "Oh all right." She grabbed her purse and stamped past her son.  
  
His shoulders relaxed. _Finally_, they were moving. He jogged after Finn. "I can drive" he offered.  
  
Finn smiled wryly. "So can I. Two glasses of wine are well below the limit. Do you know where the address is?"  
  
"Yeah" Ham said significantly.  
  
Finn didn't get the significance of Ham remembering. He assumed Ham had been over at Will's place during this week.

* * *

"You brought your entire family." Sean's voice rose incredulously.  
  
Will, looking kinda shaky, tried to stand up. "That's not the Dean. That's Finn."  
  
"Lie down." Finn had rushed ahead of the Flemings and was beside the couch. "Stop. Let's push this out of the way."  
  
Ham had frozen on the threshold, and Ham's mom was looking around her, anthropologist-like. Thinking back later, Ham would worry. If there was one thing guarranteed to make Sean cranky and defensive, it was this: feeling treated like a sociological field trip.  
  
There was a painting on the wall that, every time he saw it over the last year, made Ham wince. The palette was discordant and the perspective jarred. He blamed it and the house around it for the fact Will was exclusively a word person, blind to clues in imagery. But, he'd never commented on the picture to Will, or, God forbid, to Mrs Krudsky. She painted it herself after a night course in art at the community college. 

Ham realised he was distracting himself from what was happening by thinking irrelevant stuff. Will's scarlet Tshirt had blood on it, darker patches against the red. Ew.  
  
"None of the cuts are deep" Will said.  
  
Finn did his first aid thing. The Dean had sent him to be trained and certificated when he took over as crew coach.  
  
"I just got banged about" Will said.  
  
"What happened?" Ham was shocked.  
  
Will closed his eyes. "Later" he said. "Ack-" Finn had taken his Tshirt off. Apparently it hurt.  
  
"Dislocated shoulder" Finn said. "Mostly bruising. And your pupils are different sizes."  
  
"My head hit the wall."  
  
Finn took a deep breath. "All right."  
  
Hamilton's mom finally stopped staring round. Mismatched furniture, ornaments she personally found tacky, fewer books than she would have expected. She passed silent judgement, and turned on Sean. "Why didn't you call an ambulance?" she wanted to know.  
  
"And paid, how?" Sean got defensive.  
  
Ham knew this mood. Sean must have wanted to call help, Ham guessed. Will had forbidden him. Will was so stupid about some things.  
  
Ham went and got a bowl of luke warm water from the kitchen. Finn could get a better idea of the cuts if he wiped the dried blood off. There was a first aid kit under the sink. Good. He needed bandages. Will was oozing again in a couple of places, where clots had gunked onto his Tshirt. Pulling the top off had opened those up. He got back to the living-room as quickly as he could without spilling the bowl.  
  
He didn't want to be here. He was embarrassed on Will's behalf - not that Will had the energy to care right now. The tang of fresh blood caught the back of his throat and made him nauseous. It was the grossest smell. He tried to think of another errand out of the room. He could run upstairs and get a buttonup shirt. People in shock had to be kept warm.  
  
Finn had draped his jacket round Will's shoulders.  
  
Ham tried to think of helpful things. Tea. Hot, sweet tea. They drank pints of it in old British war movies. He knew because the Dean was a secret fan of Kenneth More and Dickie Attenborough films.  
  
Will would have to be paler and frailer than this for Ham to get sugary tea down his neck. Besides, he didn't really know how Mrs Krudsky organized her kitchen cupboards. An absence that had been niggling him clicked. "Will, where's your mom?"  
  
"She left."  
  
"To get a doctor." Mrs Fleming assumed.  
  
"For good."  
  
That silenced everyone. Ham touched Will's unhurt arm. "Man, that's harsh."  
  
"I've been telling her to leave him for years." Will sounded broken now his advice had been taken. "I didn't mean to be around when he found out she'd gone."  
  
"Yikes" Ham muttered almost inaudibly.  
  
Mrs Fleming took Will's hand in both of hers. She would have hugged him if she could. "Will, she left him. Not you. You do get that? People don't leave their husbands unless there's no other way. Your mom loves you. Everything's going to work out."  
  
Will gulped.  
  
Over the soothing murmur, Finn caught Ham's eye, and Sean's eye, and jerked his head toward the door. Ham was relieved to obey.  
  
Ham and Sean got outside. Ham wasn't sure what to say. "Intense" he said.  
  
"You're not gonna go blabbing this round your snobby friends." Sean made a threat of the words. Ham's refreshed memories told him that uncertainty got Sean aggressive.  
  
"I can keep a secret." Sean knew him better than to think he'd tell. "Scout needs to know, but Will should tell him."  
  
Sean looked at him slyly. "And Jake? You two don't have secrets from each other."  
  
"You'd be surprised" Ham muttered. He wanted to get back to school. He pulled Will's bike away from the wall. "I'll take his bike. Mom will drive him back to school, or casualty." As an afterthought "Or the police station."  
  
"Yeah." Sean was subdued.  
  
Ham didn't go. He asked "You all right?"  
  
"Of course" Sean said at once. He didn't look all right. "What about Will?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Is Rawley gonna take care of him?"  
  
"Of course" Ham said in his turn. "Mom'll make sure of that."  
  
Sean looked doubtfully at the lit window. Finn was doing most of the taking care so far.  
  
"It's a boarding school" Ham reminded him. "The 24/7 thing is what they do."  
  
"What about the break between summer session and next term?"  
  
"Oh." Hamilton had forgotten about that. He was hoping to spend those three weeks with Jake. Now his memories told him Will didn't know Jake was Jacqueline. "-uh, Calhoun?" he suggested.  
  
Sean mumbled something rude about Calhouns.  
  
Ham let it pass. Even before Scout dated Bella, Sean had problems with him, refusing to see beyond his offensively privileged background. He waited for Sean to talk, smoothing his hand along the porch rail. Ouch, splinter. This sidling up to the topic was not very Sean. Ham drew the splinter out in the light spilling from the house.  
  
Finally, Sean said "Mrs Krudsky left."  
  
"Yeah." Ham had met her several times. She was nice. "Jake totally envies Will his mom." Jake had said so that afternoon.  
  
"It's going to be rough on Will, having his parents split up."  
  
"I know." Sean had asked him not to spill this news round Rawley. He said "You know, a lot of the guys at school have divorced parents." Ham thought it'd be easier on Will than most. He could give his loyalty whole to one parent, no shades of grey involved. There wasn't any debate that Mr Krudsky was the Bad Guy, here. It must be terrible to have your support demanded by both sides over years of grudge wars, Ham thought.  
  
"You're saying parents splitting is no big deal" Sean said.  
  
Sean was putting words in his mouth. Hamilton lost patience. "It's a big deal, but it's not a, a -" He couldn't think of a word. "He hasn't done anything bad." Bad would be like - Ham thought back to that argument with Jake - falsifying test scores, or snarling unfairly the way Ryder did, or something. "Look, what is this about?"  
  
Sean eyed Kate and Finn glumly. "Nothing, apparently."  
  
"Okay. Well. I'm out of here." His movements jerky with annoyance, Ham set off for home.


	11. end Ham nesiac

Hmm, not sure what was trying to do with Ham's rather sweet obliviousness to the Kate/Finn thing worked at all. Anyway, The End. Hurray! Thank you all again for all the comments - :)

* * *

"Yes. You have to get over here, please.. To talk, to sort things out. ..'K." Ham dropped his cell phone on his bed and looked over at the door. Will, who he'd heard being shepherded into the house a few minutes ago, was hovering there. Will looked nervous. "Hey," Ham said to him.  
  
Will ducked his head. "Your mom sent -"  
  
Ham nodded. Obviously mom had decided Will was staying over. Will's arms were full of blankets. He went over to take them.  
  
Will flinched.  
  
"We don't have a guest room; it got converted" Ham said. His mom used it to paint in. It stank of paint and it was cluttered, mostly with art equipment, but he also kept his weights there. He twitched the bundle of bedding away from Will. "I'll make a nest out of this. You'd better take the bed."  
  
Will relaxed, but not by much.  
  
Ham couldn't tell whether Will was embarrassed Ham had seen him hurt, or afraid of Ham (which made No Sense, but then he was startling at sudden noises, and staring all round himself 360 degrees, and eyes that bloodshot should be closed. On the bloodshot eyes front, Eww, as Jake would say.) Or, in view of Ham's reputation, he could be worried about being cruised. Ham grimly set about untangling blankets. Today had sucked; he wanted it over. He considered moving himself to Mom's painting room.  
  
"Was that Jake on the phone?"  
  
Ham glanced up. "No."  
  
Will hadn't moved any further into the room. "Aren't you going to say anything?" he said disbelievingly.  
  
Ham's heart sank. "You want to talk." All he wanted was to go to sleep and hope for a better tomorrow. He was drained. This was typical of Will Krudsky, big speeches at the moment when Ham so totally didn't need it.  
  
"No - I mean - "  
  
Reluctantly, Ham asked "You all right? Mom took care of you."  
  
"Well, it was mostly Finn. Finn's great." Will went off on a big long speech about the awesomeness that was Finn. Will was prone to big long speeches. And Ham could see that Will was all big Yay for Finn, and he got that, but he wasn't all up to join in. And now Will was on a riff about Finn As The Perfect Dad, and, no. Finn had the Lionel Luthor hair for starters which was not a good omen. And that was before you even got started on his tendency to profound monologues. Really, no. Ham **had** a dad. Finn might be a step up from Mr Krudsky - all right, Ham admitted, he was a step up. For himself, Ham preferred what he had.  
  
So, OK, Finn was great. If you weren't Hamilton Fleming. Ham grunted, and started rummaging for old clothes to sleep in. It was likely Will hadn't brought anything. You want-?" He pulled out an old pair of sweatpants. The legs would reach to midcalf on Will but neither of them were models.  
  
"Uh, thanks." However, Will wouldn't leave the subject of Finn alone. "He's so cool. I wish you knew him better."  
  
Ham wasn't having that. "I've known him for years."  
  
"Yeah, he's a friend of your Mom." Will forged on like Ham needed to know this stuff. As if. "You don't know him like I know him. He's been more like a dad than my father has."  
  
Ham was uncomfortable with what to say to that. See, this was why he'd wanted not to start this conversation. "He's been okay to you." Even to himself, it sounded grudging.  
  
"Better than okay. He'd be a great dad, or stepdad, or something."  
  
Ham saw his own face in the mirror; it was confused. So, Will was plotting for Mrs Krudsky to get together with Finn? That would be kind of a Disney kids' film plan. "I don't see it." He didn't want to snub Krudsky or anything, but he wanted to head this dumb idea off at the pass. I don't see it, was Ham-speak for No! No! and did I say? No!!  
  
Will didn't get Ham-speak. He said, "What?"  
  
"Finn and your mom as an item. It's just, I've never seen them _meet_, even." Remembering a Shakespeare lecture of Finn's, he thought, if life were a play Finn and Mrs K could be played by the same actor. Or had Jake told him about double parts for actors? Jake grew up around the stage, his - no, her - mom was an actress. Ham had even met Ms Pratt, now that he came to remember.  
  
After all Jake's whining, he had been surprised he could stand Monica Pratt. If he hadn't known how much she'd hurt his best friend, he'd've called her pretty cool. She was interested in him, in his photos, and she offered to use her contacts for him. She'd been all, like, "we artists have to stick together." He'd dropped his head then, and looked at Jake through his lashes. She'd barely started being his girlfriend then; he couldn't keep his eyes off her. She was looking up and away, over the lake. Feeling left out. He never meant to exclude her.  
  
Looking back, he didn't think her mom meant to do that, either.  
  
With hindsight he asked himself what he hadn't then. Why had she let them edge her out of the conversation till it was just him and Monica and, point for Jake, that damn cell phone? They slid into that so easily. From a load of things Jake said, Ham thought that might be the pattern.  
  
Monica wasn't a bad person. She needed to be hit upside the head to make her notice. Coming to Rawley hadn't done the trick. Ham snorted. Jake once told him she agreed with Scout about Bella. Jake thought Bella should talk directly to her mom, tell her how she felt. Ham thought Jake should take her own advice. Monica needed things spelt out in small words and easy sentences. Jake's approach was way too oblique.  
  
Spacing out, he'd semi-missed Will's "More likely, Finn and _your_ mom." That was one sick crack.  
  
Ham didn't let Will get to him. "I may not have seen him all weekend" he said evenly "but I have a dad."  
  
Will shut up them, to Hamilton's extreme relief. He hit the bathroom.  
  
When he came back, Will said "Fleming?"  
  
"Your turn."  
  
"Hamilton. I'm sorry, man."  
  
He didn't answer. He was beat.  
  
In Ham's dreams, _Jake drifted down the river, the painter trailing from the boat, away from him, out of reach. Finn's voice recited "The curse has come upon me. Cried." And then, somehow, (but it was a dream) the Dean and Finn were playing chess. Ham knew the winner would get to be Dad, but the outcome was out of his hands. Krudsky was moving one step forward and two to the side, ending up next to him. "Scout's the king; we've got to protect him from everything." Ham looked down at himself. He was a pawn, no surprise there. When he looked up he was alone. Suddenly someone came rushing up to him from the far side of the board. Only a queen could make that move but he couldn't make out what colour the piece was - it wasn't a piece - it was Jake. Finn's voice: "He said, She has a lovely face. God in his mercy give her grace-"_  
  
He woke up. "Okay. Freaky dream."

* * *

"Hey, dude."  
  
Saturday. Jake's dorm. Jake greeting him like he was still clueless. Ham felt a spasm of anger. His throat physically seized up; for a minute he was too choked to say a word.  
  
"..Ham? You doing okay?" Jake showed a cautious concern, staying in the manly frame.  
  
_Careful_, Ham thought sourly. _You might break cover_. "I'm cool." His voice sounded strained even to himself. "You heard about Krudsky."  
  
"Nope." Jake wasn't much for the grapevine. Her gaze on Ham was unwavering.  
  
Ham shifted under it. For his part, he moved restlessly around the room, picking things up and putting them down. Aside from Jake's computer and the cables that went with it, there wasn't much loose. There were a couple of lengths of hawser. Jake had been practising knots again. There were some she couldn't get the trick of. She blamed it on coming from Manhatten. Ham had grown up by this lake. He kept meaning to show her this stuff.  
  
He could have come over for that knot lesson today. He liked Jake-his-best-friend. Threatening the status quo pissed him off.  
  
He looked the room over. It was pretty much pared down to the bare bones of furnishings supplied by the school. Ham leaned on the end of the bed and stared at the closet door. Jake had four dresses and funky shoes to match in there. He hadn't seen them in over a month.  
  
The silent and scowling routine got old for Jake fast. "Ham" she said in her briskest coxswain manner.  
  
Ham flicked a sidelong eye at her. Now he knew who she was, looking at her was like that optical illusion - the silhouette that was a candlestick or two profiles depending on whether you focussed on white or black. Weirdly, she looked simultaneously boyish and girly. Either was hot by him.  
  
"Ham, if you've got no reason to be here, uh, I was heading out anyhow."  
  
Oh, yes, the illegal bike. Ham just looked at her. Jake had never left him alone in her room since the accident. She didn't want him finding anything incriminating. "You gonna throw me out? He looked her up and down. There was no way she could overpower him with muscle. No, she had to use headgames for that.  
  
Jake, angry, demanded "Ham, man, what's up?"  
  
"Jake, **man,** I phoned my dad." (She owed him.) "Last night."  
  
Jake governed her face but she breathed quicker. "Uh huh." She swiped her palms along her pants legs.  
  
He was making her sweat. Fine. And, did he mention, she owed him. He felt like a puppet. He was good and mad about this manipulation shit. He caught the air of strain about her. He felt mean. "I phoned him about Krudsky."  
  
"What about Krudsky?"  
  
"His dad hurt him last night. Sean called, and I brought my mom and Finn over."  
  
"Your mom and Finn" Jake repeated.  
  
Odd response, thought Ham. "Yeah. I asked Dad to come back early."  
  
"Uh huh." (But she hated the Dean being around.) "Is Will okay?"  
  
Jake was always more relaxed when the Dean was away. It must suck to put on an act 24/7. "Yeah." Ham shrugged. He didn't need to pursue this; Jake was always strikingly uninterested in gossip. She never asked personal questions, she discouraged return queries. She wasn't uninterested. When Ham volunteered stuff, she was totally non judgemental. None of the other guys knew how she could listen, and sympathize, and make it all seem manageable. Only Ham got that.  
  
He went over to the desk at the window. He didn't want to change things. He didn't need this upheaval, and he still didn't know what to say. He picked textbooks up and put them down. Then the ropes. "Hey. How are you coming along with those knots?"  
  
"Don't ask." Jake came over and took them from him. Her head dipped, twisting the rope into - Ham watched - an almost perfect Flemish Loop. She looked up, grinning.  
  
"Finn hasn't taught us that one" he said.  
  
"I found it in a book." The knot collapsed. "Damn."  
  
"You need to tuck that end in more." He watched her sink onto the side of the bed, frowning at her hands.  
  
"I can show you. Not from this angle. Stay right there." He scooted onto the bed behind her. He had a body memory of that cycle ride, Jake backed up against him, bracketed between his arms. It was easier not looking her in the eye. Their hands worked together tangling the rope so it held together. He rested his chin on a shoulder. Bony. He raised his head. "When were you going to tell me?" He'd given it enough thought. He was never going to think of the "right" words.  
  
"Wh-what?" Jake's whole body galvanised.  
  
He tightened his hold on her. She wasn't jumping up and running out on him now. He could only take so much unresolved tension. "I worked it out last night." He sounded angry. Yeah. That would be because he was angry. He had good cause.. she smelled good. He'd forgotten that smell.  
  
"Tell you what?" Cautious.  
  
I cannot believe this, Ham thought, but he did believe it. Jake was gonna try and spin this. How dare she. He twisted her shoulders round and kissed her messily. His lips felt sensitised, hell, all of him felt sensitised. Every nerve ending was waving and saying hello. Some nerve endings more than others, naturally. But - he couldn't think in words. His English had left for a neighbouring state. And Jake was all - Wow.  
  
Also, minty.  
  
"Back up Ham. What do you think you are doing?" A clipped voice.  
  
Angry, Ham thought. His IQ might have signed off and gone to lie on a beach in St Martin, but he was pretty sure Jake knew what he was doing.  
  
Jake had scrambled away. She was across the room now, talking fast and emphasising words. " - don't be mad at me - " was a recurring phrase in the babble. Also, " - I've got to tell you -"  
  
"Something you have to tell me?" he suggested affably. He rearranged himself for comfort and observed "You're so cute when you yammer." He should have kissed her days ago.  
  
Jake levelled a glare intended to torch him. "Fleming. I'm. Not. A. Boy."  
  
This was so Some Like It Hot. If he replied, nobody's perfect, she would, in truth, kill him. "I know."  
  
"You - what?"  
  
"I worked it out last night." Wriggling, he pulled one of the snaps out of his back pocket. "You know, when I found these I thought for a moment you were a transvestite."  
  
She was wide eyed, caught, on the edge of bolting. She took a step nearer the door.  
  
His voice froze her. "Then I remembered" he said. "Everything."  
  
Jake blushed deeply.  
  
Now that his whole life experience was downloadable, Ham thought that last year, and Jake, had given him a lot. Keeping that secret, finding a place among the other guys, had detached him from his parents. Making the thing with Jake work (it hadn't gone smoothly) had given him confidence. He was comfortable in his own skin in a way he hadn't been when he was revving up to start school for the first time.  
  
"Why didn't you tell me?" She still hadn't answered that. He still wanted to know. He figured she was embarrassed about the mess their lives had gotten into.  
  
"There were a lot of downsides.." Jake was fiddling with the fall of her fringe, not looking at him. The flush hadn't entirely died on her cheeks.  
  
He nodded. He knew.  
  
"So, it was kind of a fresh start for you."  
  
Sceptical, he didn't believe she had been entirely altruistic. If she wholeheartedly wanted a fresh start, she had only to leave. He wouldn't have known to stop her. If she'd wanted him at her feet, one explanation would have brought him home. (Assuming she trusted him. Ham cut that line of thinking short.) She'd left it to fate.  
  
He knew what fate meant for him and her. "I fell in love with you a second time around" he said.  
  
"Really?" Jake, breathless. She could get drunk on pretty speeches alone, Ham thought.  
  
She didn't **make** pretty speeches so much, though, and so much had been different lately. She was so hard to read. He was forced to ask. "And you?"  
  
She knew what he meant right away. "Ham. I never stopped loving you."

* * *

Saturday afternoon, they went out and walked the grounds. Jake thought they'd better show their faces in public. Another thing Ham had forgotten; how much it sucked to be not able to even hold hands in public.  
  
He nodded to Johnson, and Calhoun, and Myers.  
  
It was weird. He'd had two conversations with Jake that morning. The aloud one hadn't made much sense, but the one that had clinched their reunion had been his eyes and Jake's, saying, yes, I want you, I need you, come back, yes.  
  
Random conversation. The crew's chances at the next meet, rumours online about a forthcoming PC game.  
  
A car swept up the drive, too fast, and pulled to an untidy stop by the front entrance. The displaced gravel swooshed like driving through a puddle.  
  
"Dramatic driving for your Dad" Jake said.  
  
"Don't worry. This is about Will."  
  
The Dean climbed out of the car. He was dressed down, Deanstyle, in an outfit based on study of lifestyle articles in People about tycoons. Dad tried to get a grip on relaxing, but was very bad at it. His head turned, looking for family.  
  
"Gotta go. Dad needs me." Ham grinned encouragingly at Jake and jogged off.  
  
"Where's your mother?" was the Dean's first question.  
  
"Back home. Will slept over." Ham turned and led the way. "I think Finn's there, too."  
  
"Finn?" His father overtook him. "That's not necessary."  
  
The hostility in his voice was somtthing Ham had never heard before. Dad dislikes Finn, Ham thought. This was a newsflash. So, hypothetically, if Hamilton didn't like Finn, that would be cool with one parent. Ham said, "Will thinks a lot of him." Understatement. He added gloomily "Will wants to **be** Finn." He looked carefully at his Dad. Yep. That was definitely a look of distaste. Quiet yay.Ham was right. When they got to the house Will and Finn were standing under the crab apple trees at the end of the garden, talking. That broke up, drowned out by barking. The dogs threw themselves on Dad with gusto, like they'd been starved of everything worth having since he'd gone. Dad hung onto his dignity gamely, but still emerged with a light dusting of dog hair on his pants. Ansel was leaning blissfully against him for a backscratch when he said "Mr Krudsky? How are you?"  
  
"I'm fine, Mr Fleming. I'm sorry-"  
  
"You've done nothing to be sorry for" the Dean said crisply. "We'd better take this inside. (Ansel, get **off **me.) Ham, be on time for lunch."  
  
"I'm always on time for meals" Ham protested mildly. He gave his Dad a one armed hug. If the dogs could molest him, why not he.  
  
Bemused, his Dad ushered Will and Finn inside.

* * *

"What was that about?" Jake's voice. Jake had followed, and was lurking under a beech near the gate.  
  
"Hmmm?"  
  
"The hug. Last year you were totally working the aloof thing."  
  
Last year he'd been trying to be cool. He thought it was manly. Now, he thought faking cool was childish. Speaking of childish, "I kind of did it **at** Will and Finn" he admitted.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Will sees Finn as the ideal Dad."  
  
Jake thought that one over. Ham waited for her take on this. Her eventual statement was cautious. "Finn said it himself, you can't change your parents."  
  
"When? ..oh, yeah." Ham speculated about raiding the kitchen. Everyone would be on the far side of the house. He wasn't hungry enough to bother. "Pier?" he suggested.  
  
"Okay."  
  
As he left the garden, he asked "Would you want to?"  
  
Jake's brows drew together.  
  
"Would you want to change your parents?" he clarified.  
  
"Assuming it was possible." Jake had less patience than he had with hypothetical questions.  
  
She took action, and worked out her theoretics on the hoof. Make Mom notice you! Do something crazy! Get found! Run like hell! If he hadn't clung to Jake (like a baby to a security blankie, and, OK, that wasn't his most alpha moment) she'd be clear to the far coast after the shower thing. They reacted to a crisis so differently. "If Monica was different, you'd be a different person." Ham was thinking this last part aloud. "Wow."  
  
Beside him, Jake grinned. This was going to be one of Ham's rants. They amused her.  
  
"- the thing you have with your Mom is, like, your **formative** -"  
  
This was amusing Jake less. "Hey."  
  
Ham said "Look, I get you wanting your Mom to notice. Remember how I used to go on about Dad?"  
  
"Well. He notices now." Jake probably didn't realise how raw the envy was in her voice. "Impressive. It took a knock on the head to get him there."  
  
A knock on the head, no choice. Hugging Dad even though he wasn't approachable, a calculated risk. Making a fool of himself talking about Dickens, sign of desperation. When Will volunteered for home improvement, that could be Will's equivalent of talking about Dickens. And then Will's dad went psycho, Ham thought.  
  
Monica was neglectful, but no way ever would she throw a Mr Krudsky. Ham congratulated himself. He had the best deal in parents. Unconsciously smug, he said that if he was heard by Radio Fleming it was because he was making an effort to get through. Paying attention, opening up, finding a wavelength.  
  
"You read too much **Just Seventeen**" Jake mumbled. "Just look at the pretty pictures, Ham."  
  
"Otherwise" Ham ignored her "I'd still be a stranger in my own house. Like you."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I mean, you took action to get attention from your Mom."  
  
"Didn't work."  
  
"Well, these days you don't want that look, Jake screwed up attention. And while we're thinking how to get the right kind -"  
  
"-we??"  
  
"- what's mine is yours. Starting with Dad and -"  
  
"Has he been informed he's getting an extra kid?"  
  
"- you could join for lunch today."  
  
Jake groaned loudly. "This is just you strategising not to get stuck with Will one on one."  
  
True. "Is it bad that I don't want him getting intense?" He picked peeling paint off a fencepost. They were on a path that followed the line of the lake shore. "I know you avoid Dad. I get why. But I want to do this."  
  
"You've been very son-of-the-Dean" Jake said slowly.  
  
"Well I am. And I'm your boyfriend. Both. At least, for one lunchtime." He thought, I'll scheme a way for all the other things I want later.  
  
END 


End file.
